As Ernest Hemingway might have written; the sea smelled of salt and the sky was the color of old steel as the jet airliner pulled into Barcelona. The city was good in the morning when the streets were empty except for the sound of water running from the hoses of shopkeepers washing the stone. A glass of orujo before the sun climbed too high, the fishermen unloading their catch at Barceloneta, the quiet of the Gothic Quarter before the tourists came, all of it was good.
In Madrid, the air was crisp and light, the scent of blooming trees drifting through the streets. The Prado was a cool refuge, where Velázquez and Goya waited like old ghosts. Evenings were for whiskey and good ham, and walking up the Gran Vía, where the streetlights flickered warmly in the soft breeze. The city was for men who knew how to endure, how to drink without hurry, and how to find meaning in the quiet moments between the rush.
The road south through Castilla-La Mancha was long and open, green fields stretching to the horizon. In the villages, the men sat in the bars with their small beers, watching the road, saying little. Don Quixote had ridden through here once, and perhaps he still did, somewhere in the windmills and the gentle wind. The land was simple and full of space, the kind of place where a man could be alone with himself, and that was good, too.
Andalucía was the end of things, where the light turned golden in the evenings and the streets smelled of oranges and fresh blossoms. The bulls ran hard in Ronda, and the guitars played late into the night in Seville. In Granada, the Alhambra stood like a dream of something lost, something men once fought over and would fight over again. The gypsies danced in the caves above the city, and the wind carried the sound of their singing down to the streets below.
The train left as it came, sliding through the country like a slow knife through something tender. Spain was good, and it had been good to be in Spain. A man could live here, or he could leave and think about it until he came back. Either way, Spain stayed with him.